but then if they sell these much better products for the same price.. they will be cutting in their own profits because they deliver a system almost as good as the 101 tablet for 100 euros less.. you know what i'm trying to say? i'm having a double feeling about this.. and it's a little bit akward having to wait for something that might not be in stores untill the end of the year for all we know:p

Nah, they sell as many IT and Arnovas as they can afford to make anyways. People still pay more for IT, but it also makes sense for Archos to try to get the Arnova as powerful and good as possible, and kind of replace 101 sales with that, partly, and then they focus on Gen9 for top Archos line, get that out as soon as they can (might be 6 months from now, I dunno).

Just cause the Arnova is cheaper does not necessarily mean Archos or the resellers make less money. Sometimes even if profit margins are smaller amount of money per sale, the lower cost means more sales even, and that can result in more revenues and more profits overall. That's the rule of larger volume and lower profit margins.

The big deal here is how quickly can Rockchip get this new platform out, how good can Archos get an even cheaper capacitive touch screen, how good can Rockchip make the Android support on this chip, can they get Gingerbread then Honeycomb working super smoothly on it soon, is the performance as good or better even than IT line really, does the rk29 version have HDMI output and does it really play every codec at up to 1080p 30mbitps, does it support things like Upnp streaming nicely even with enough buffer and bandwidth for up to high bitrate 1080p videos. All these questions and more, a lot of work to do there.

But surely, I think this product could be totally kick-ass at $199, super duper value. If they can make all this happen and have launched the mass production in time with large enough quantities to supply lots and lots of demand, this could be a gigantic hit. Of course one cannot expect the Arnova to have as good a screen as the $800 tablets out there, but as long as it's not worse than the IT line, then I think they will have a great success even with the most anti-Android apple fanboy reviewers, everyone will realize Android will dominate the tablet market starting this year already, faster than Nexus One made Android dominate in the smartphone industry.

but then if they sell these much better products for the same price.. they will be cutting in their own profits because they deliver a system almost as good as the 101 tablet for 100 euros less.. you know what i'm trying to say?

If Archos' only competition was themselves or if their brand was so strong that the unified "iPad-type" front of their devices was their identity, then it'd be a problem. But they're competing with a market that is heating up real, real quick, and nobody has answers as to how it'll shake out. The low end will certainly do well just by impulse, we're seeing now if high-ends like Xoom do OK, and mid-range like the 101s (which I would think have GOT to be due for a refresh sometime soon, even though the rollout took forever they technically launched in I believe August, and in the Tablet world that was a dinosaur's age ago) is still in flux and establishing what it is.

As I'm feeling it, Archos' problem isn't necessarily its range of products, it's its ability to differentiate them from each other compounded by their wonky communication problems. The 70c was absolutely the wrong direction IMO, using the A70 name for a product a fraction the ability set and with a weird button layout of the original (plus, it's not on the same OS ... kinda defeating the purpose of the "Gen8 movement" to have another splinter product at a time when everybody is lining up behind one single device line.) The introduction of Arnova, however, is absolutely the right direction, defining its cheapest (and least supported, I will assume) devices under a different brand that's recognizable as Archos but that stands apart from the traditional Generation series that we're all hoping they continue to A) support with further OS updates and B) iterate on with a strong Gen9.

i had today the opportunity to test a Arnova 10 and a Archos 7 HT V2.and currently the 7HT outperforms the 10.especially the screen on the 7HT felt more responsive.hope this will change once the RK29 verison is available

Yes I had the same experience, unfortunately I found out after I bought the ARNOVA 10, I was expecting something between the 7HTv2 and the 101. Although I knew I would be sacrificing some preformance, I did not expect the Arnova to run so slow. I expected 800 mhz as with the 7HTv2 not 600 mhz . The resistive mat screen, I saw as a plus -better viewing angles, not as vulnerable as the glass on my 101 ,which I'm anxious about. I added Kasty -arn from Arctools which is great , Market, youtube, gmail,flash 10.1. ect. What I find really disappionting about the ARNOVA ,is the battery life. I seem only to be able to charge in "suspend" mode ,each time I try to turn the unit off with the charger plugged in, it turns itself off . My other disappointment is that the USB host seems only to work with thumb drives and not cameras or card readers. I was hoping to use the ARNOVA on with my camera to view pictures I had just taken, do minor editing and email photos in the field . Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Inspite of all this ,nothing is quite as nightmarish as getting photos on an off the ipad, even with the camera connection kit (which is intentionally crippled- no card readers, thumb drives , specific DCIM's only) Apple tech support says the best way to get your photos on to your ipad outside of itunes, is to email them to yourself or download them from a cloud service. Yeah ok how do you get them on the web ? Eyefi still hasn't come out with a card that can do this, you can store but not upload away from your computer. All this being said ,is it possible to get the Arnova USB host to recognize a camera or card reader ? For a simple device to use with photos it's almost ideal, I'm leery of the next gen of ARNOVA with RK29 and capacitive screen as I suspect this is Archos's way of off loading Gen 8 before releasing Gen 9. I already have a 101 and a 7HTv2 which sturdier than the 101 . I was hoping that the ARNOVA 10 would be like the 7HTv2 with a large screen and a USB host

My mistake- Should read - Every time I plug in the charger and turn off the unit ,it turns itself on. I can only charge in "suspend" mode. Also can't get Photoshop Express to work on either the ARNOVA 10 or the 7HTv2. The Photoshop Express controls seem to be hidden by the Archos Status bar.

Thanks, I don't have Froyo, just Eclair , tried downloading both Zeam and Launcher Pro ,which were unsuccessful .Was fun to play Angry Birds in slow motion, Right now I have Kasty Arn ,latest version as of 4/4 , I've uninstalled almost as much as I can. I now have Internal flash storage 2.45 GB available, Internal device device storage 218 MB available . I also have an 8 GB micro sd with 6.30 GB Available. About Device reads -Model number A101B, Firmware version 1.1.5 , Kernel version 2.6.25 root@cst-desktop #525, Build number VO.18.Eclair.eng.root 20110122.188888

I'm still having problems mounting camera. When I select USB work mode select and choose Host Mode it says, "Select usb work as host mode, then you can mount U-disk or 3G modules" . Does this mean that it is not meant for cameras mounted via usb cable ? No camera icon appears in status bar, as it does on my At101. Wondering if there's something I can do about this. ARNOVA is fine just sluggish, slower than 7HTv2. If I could get usb host to recognize my camera and find an overclock and a launcher that are compatible ,it would be great thanks in advance

That's confusing , I thought 32IT would be eligible for Froyo upgrade, but I've heard of problems, which is why some choose to roll back firmware.On my end you did bring up an interesting point though, is it possible to download drivers or update Kastsy Arn to deal with usb issue. I've heard of usb going out after firmware upgrades on the 101IT. My Arnova usb isn't totally dead as it picks up thumb drives. Do you have any overclocks or launchers to recommend for eclair ?

yea forgot to mention tat my 32 runs on froyo latest firmware...might be possible that my camera just gets recognized as usb-thumb-drive.maybe you could try to plug a usb-hub to the arnova and plug your cam in there...helped me for some usb-thumbdrives.

there are a lot launchers out there.i use launcherpro, but i don┬┤t know if current version works wit eclair.

overclocking the rk2818...don┬┤t know..did some googeling...maybe you can get answers in the 7htv2 forum.but you can try a benchmark and take a look at what speed your cpu is clocked.

I found the Arnovatech website a few days ago, but it was not working. I checked it again today and it seems functional. At least the US English and Canadian English options were partly working. They need to figure out that we do not use Euros in Canada though.